To Celebrate the Apocalypse...

The Steam holiday sale has begun.

Valve Eyes a Walled Garden

Today, Valve announced a service that would essentially let us have a say in what games actually make it to be sold on Steam.  In the long voting tradition where America allows the throngs to elect its idols, Steam's Greenlight allows us to be the final arbiter in their walled garden.

The Summer Sale Returns!

Prepare yourself!  Intellectual Property is being cheapened!  Hold your wallet tight!

Today, in order of the number of craps I give:

Cheapening Intellectual Property

EA's David DeMartini, Senior Vice President of Global eCommerce and head of the Origin service, stated this about Steam sales recently:


 "I just think it cheapens your intellectual property. I know both sides of it, I understand it. If you want to sell a whole bunch of units, that is certainly a way to do that, to sell a whole bunch of stuff at a low price. The gamemakers work incredibly hard to make this intellectual property, and we're not trying to be Target. We're trying to be Nordstrom."

It's no secret that I'm a fan of Valve.  Aside from their wonderful games, they made perhaps the first viable digital distribution platform, tying it in with a social platform.  EA's shot across the bow flatly states that they feel that Steam's model of sales is killing intellectual property values.  While it's true that they've left me with quite a backlog of games, the fact is that I've bought games that I've had little to no interest in.  Here are five things I think are deflating the industry IP value before Steam's sales can even be considered.